Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Importantly, what the Labor Party seeks to do this evening—and if it is delayed until August when we come back after the recess—is to continue to shackle the free-to-air broadcasters that are operating in a very constrained financial environment and that would like to be unshackled to better deliver Australian drama, Australian content and Australian sport.

It is interesting that opposition senators and others talk about their support for reform, but say, 'There are some elements of the reform that we do not like so, therefore, we are going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.' When they do that they are doing not just the media industry a disservice; they are doing the parents of children who might find themselves in the face of gambling advertising a disservice and, most importantly, they are doing a disservice to the free-to-air broadcasters in our country that want to be unshackled and want to provide better services to consumers.

It is clear that the Labor Party do not understand what they say, because, if they understood what they say, they would be supporting media reform on the basis that continued rapid decline in the financial viability of Australian media proprietors is a real risk. It exists today. It is happening at a very fast rate. Any continued delay in this very sensible and well-balanced media reform package serves to undermine the interests that Labor senators have come into this place this evening and said they actually support. They are undermining their own arguments by opposing this important reform package.

I have been associated with the government attempts at media reform for some time. In my role as the chairman of the government's communications backbench committee I have worked closely with Senator Fifield and other government members—National Party members and Liberal Party members—to best steer a path around media reform. It is worth noting how far the government has come on the important issue of media reform. Under the leadership of the former Prime Minister, media reform was, to use his words, 'off the table'. It was not going to happen. Then, after careful stewardship by Senator Fifield, the coalition came to a consensus view about the suitability of preserving the 75 per cent reach rural and came to a consensus view about the suitability of retaining the two-out-of-three media ownership rule. That consensus was that these two regulatory rules were no longer fit for purpose for the Australian media industry.

What informed those opinions significantly was not the attitude of big media proprietors but the attitude of media proprietors who were operating in the regional marketplace in this country—the very people Senator McCarthy applauded tonight because of the services and the diversity that they deliver to regional people and, in her specific case, to regional people and Indigenous people living in our remote communities. If I can digress for a moment, I want to applaud the great work of Sandy Dann at the Goolarri radio station in the Kimberley. Senator Siewert would know Sandy Dann as well. It is 99.7 FM for those who want to tune in. In all seriousness, Goolarri is exactly one of those radio stations delivering the sorts of services that Senator McCarthy talked about.